p. 16 | The Unmitigated Curse

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 23, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 25.

The Unmitigated Curse.

The direct cost of the liquor traffic per year to the United States is $962,192,854, equal to $13.79 per capita of the population, counting man, woman, and child. Since 1873 the average yearly coinage of silver in this country has been $25,640,212.80, or 37 cents per capita, a year. One journal thus comments on these facts: “Counting nine silver dollars to an inch, all the silver coined in the United States for one year would make a pile of silver coin a little over 36 miles high; the amount annually spent for liquor would make a pile of silver coin 1,366 miles high—a pigmy to a mountain! All the silver coined in America for the past 37 years would not pay the nation’s drink bill for one year!” It costs about $1,000,000 a day to run the United States Government, $365,000,000 a year; but nearly three times this amount is each year worse than wasted over the liquor curse. Politically there is really no greater issue, but Satan is anxious that it shall not be seen in its true light. Morally, the greatest curse is sin; for it comprehends all others; but alcohol is one of its chief generals.